Hippie Capitalism: How An Impoverished U.S. City Is Building An Economy On Co-ops

With sky-high unemployment, Richmond, California, is not a place where traditional business models alone can dent poverty. The city has turned to co-ops in hopes that people who might be unemployable in the traditional economy gain access to both jobs and control over their own labor.

Richmond has what is perhaps the only official municipal co-op consultant in the country.

"I found that the values of people in Mondragon were very much in line with the values that we were putting forward as part of our political movement in Richmond: standing for equity, standing for justice, standing for community empowerment," McLaughlin says. And so she brought the idea back to California and hired what is probably the only official municipal worker co-op consultant in the country. As of January, the first co-op born from this campaign, the aptly named Liberty Ship Café, is up and running, with plans for new bike shop, bakery, urban agriculture, and solar installation co-ops on the way.

"I’m working and dreaming and putting my efforts behind the dream of having Richmond become the national capital of worker co-ops," McLaughlin says. "I really believe we can be that. We have the need, and that’s one thing they told us in Mondragon." The first and most important thing anyone needs to make this work, the folks in Mondragon said, is need itself. And that is the one thing Richmond has in spades.

It’s the kind of thing that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would probably sneer at. But at the end of the day, it’s just a business model.

To outsiders, all of this might sound like some pretty hippie stuff. You may be more familiar with the concept of a co-op if you’ve been chuckling at the Humus Wars at the Park Slope Food Co-op, or if you know anyone who grew up "out at the co-op," the universal shorthand for '60s-era communes on the outskirts of some progressive towns. But co-op businesses are still a form of capitalism. The people who work in and own them still want to turn a profit. In this model, however, there is no gulf between the lowly employee and the business partner. All decisions are made communally. And by starting their own businesses, people who might not be employable in the traditional economy gain access to both jobs and control over their own labor. The idea is a good fit for communities dense with immigrants—the beauty of co-ops is that anyone can start them—although Richmond isn’t limiting its efforts only to its immigrant population.

"It’s the kind of thing for example that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would probably sneer at," Butt says. "But at the end of the day, it’s just a business model, and business is business. And whatever you can do to create economic activity and create jobs, it’s all business. It just shows there’s more than one way to do it."

In January, the Liberty Ship Café launched in a booth at the local farmer’s market, with the help of the California Center for Cooperative Development, which is also working with the city to fulfill McLaughlin’s vision. The café today has just three worker-owners, immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico, and it does not yet provide a full-time job for any of them. Every Friday, they sell healthy sandwiches, salads, and empanadas at the farmer’s market, and the business is expanding into lunchtime catering around town. Richmond has a long way to go from this one fledgling co-op to a community that will be transformed by the idea in the way that Mondragon has been over decades.

But already the Liberty Ship Café has begun to put a tangible face on all the talk around town about co-ops. "The whole worker-owned co-op thing, it’s most beneficial for the people directly in the co-op, but there’s a trickle-out effect, and we want to talk to people about that," says Lexi Hudson, a co-op specialist with the California Center for Cooperative Development who has been working with the café. "When one person in the community feels empowered to own their own business and make their own decisions, they’re absolutely going to be affecting everybody else in the community."

: Co-ops are very much capitalist enterprises, just not in the sense that we have become used to. Cooperatives are beholden to their shareholders as are any corporation, in the case of co-ops however, the shareholders are the people that buy the products, use the services, and (in most cases) live in the immediate community. The purpose of profit here is not to maximize the $$$, but to serve the members/shareholders. [google "7 co-op principles" which guide ALL cooperatives] So profits aren't siphoned out of the local economy, they stay local and have the wonderful effects of creating local jobs, enriching the community, and serving their members as best as they can.But make no mistake: co-ops DO need to make a profit in order to sustain themselves and carry out their social and environmental missions.So yes while Co-ops are largely incorporated as for-profit enterprises, theirs is a kinder, gentler capitalism!

Interesting article. But the author makes a deep mistake by using the word 'capitalism' here. Co-ops are not capitalist in any sense of the word. Capitalism requires a for-profit dimension and a wage dimension that divide the people involved into two classes: some people make money from investment and others only from wages. If the profit is shared by all the members of the co-op alike, then that is NOT capitalism. Also, the fact that an economic venture is NOT run by the state doesn't make it capitalist at all. The author needs to read a little about Anarcho-Syndicalism, Council Communism and Market Socialism, especially given that one of her main examples comes from the former tradition. Why can't journalists use the words 'capitalism', 'socialism' and 'communism' correctly? (Hint: don't major in journalism.)

Interesting article. But the author makes a deep mistake by using the word 'capitalism' here. Co-ops are not capitalist in any sense of the word. Capitalism requires a for-profit dimension and a wage dimension that divide the people involved into two classes: some people make money from investment and others only from wages. If the profit is shared by all the members of the co-op alike, then that is NOT capitalism. Also, the fact that an economic venture is NOT run by the state doesn't make it capitalist at all. The author needs to read a little about Anarcho-Syndicalism and market Socialism, especially given that one of her main examples comes from the former tradition. Why can't journalists use the words 'capitalism', 'socialism' and 'communism' correctly? (Hint: don't major in journalism.)

Yes lovely propaganda for Green Party Mayor Gayle McLaughlin. This is the same town that has banned Styrofoam to-go containers and plastic bags, upping the costs for local restaurants. They also allowed a vegan group from San Francisco to harass and evict the chicken farmer from the same market they are talking about. Local lawsuits also cancelled the Praxair facility that would have been built at Chevron Refinery in this town. I would be frequenting some of the businesses in Richmond except I was LAID OFF six months ago from that refinery begging the question; who is going to buy these Co-op products? Its also interesting that California Center Co-op had a conference on May Day 4 blocks from the epicenter of the mass demonstrations that day.